Delayed Gastric Emptying

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beatrice

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Morning, my mare has just been diagnosed with delayed gastric emptying and was wondering if anyone had dealt with this as it appears to be somewhat uncommon.

For background in case its relevant. New mare (5, about to turn 6 KWPN) bought August last year, started showing symptoms of ulcers so had her scoped and she had glandular ulcers. We put this down to stress as she had had a few yard moves before we bought her and then i couldn't bring her straight to our yard so another move.

Scoped clear after Misoprostal but symptoms started to reappear so given another course. Scoped clear and she was fine Feb and March.

We then had a spasmodic colic and the symptoms started coming back so restarted Misoprostal. Second colic 2 weeks later - sand test revealed excessive amounts of sand. Had a course of psyllium.

She still wasn't feeling good so spoke to vet and we agreed to rescope and then a mild workup to make sure there wasn't anything physical causing them as when the ulcers had returned, there has generally been an environmental reason to explain them.

Was starved at the vets over night, muzzled and when they have scoped she was still full of food (not a hard ball). Also noticed the exit for the stomach wasn't opening and closing anywhere near as much as it should.

Have been advised minimal hay, smaller meals and to use hay cubes etc when she is in. I have moved her to overnight turnout (no idea what i'll do in winter as not an option at our yard) and she will be on omeprazole and sulcralfate. She will be checked again in 4 weeks.

I was just hoping someone might have had some success managing this long term as what i can find online doesn't end well.
 
Sadly I have experience of this..first of all don’t feed hay or chaff just grass and soaked fibre rich foods as a slop. It’s almost a decade ago now but my mare had mild colic symptoms every now and then, ate well sometimes others not. She was admitted to horsepital and was found to have a blocked stomach which was hugely swollen, pushing other organs out the way, ulcers and she was starved and flushed for 8 days but stomach still had a compacted ball which wouldn’t shift. I tried to manage her by feeding slop every 2/3 hours but the vets said she wouldn’t survive in a livery yard situation as couldn’t have hay over winter. I’m sorry to say she had to be put down as her stomach just kept filling up, we tried for 3 months. 🙁
 
Sorry to read of your mare's problems. It is a hard one to get diagnosed and deal with.

Sadly I have experience and the outcome wasn't a positive one. Not what you what to read I know but if you want more info please PM me.
 
Thank you both, as much as i was hoping for positive outcomes, i would rather know what we are facing.

Peregrine i will drop you a message, thank you!
 
I am afraid I lost my 20 year old NF to this is 2022. But I know another horse who was at the vets that had same issue was treated and fine.

The positive in your case it that she didn't have it to start off with as you managed to scope for ulcers several times successfully.

Sulcralfate can cause delayed gastic emptying so if it was not an issue before the ulcer treatment maybe worth considering.

I do wonder if this made my pony worse. He had been colicing scoped for ulcers stomach was full spent 8 days at hospital to clear it using coke found glandular ulcer. Used sulcralfate and omeprazole to treat glandular ulcer plus restricted diet and no long fibre only sloppy feeds plus restricted grazing in grazing muzzle. Scoped 6 weeks later and stomach was blocked again with food seen in his oesophagus.

I found later that sulcralfate can cause delayed gastric emptying and did wonder if that made things worse.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Sucralfate delays gastric emptying of liquids and solids in duodenal ulcer patients - PubMed

Gastric emptying studies were performed on nine healthy volunteers and ten duodenal ulcer (DU) patients utilizing a dual radionuclide technique to assess simultaneously emptying rates of liquid (111In labeled water) and solid (99mTc sulfur colloid labeled chicken liver) components of a meal. One...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
 
I am not quite sure if this is your problem (sorry if it isn't) but this came up on my FB a couple of nights ago.
Post is dated 8/5 and is about Ulysses. (black horse, poss friesan)
Dorset BTW is in the US.

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paddy555 said:
I am not quite sure if this is your problem (sorry if it isn't) but this came up on my FB a couple of nights ago.
Post is dated 8/5 and is about Ulysses. (black horse, poss friesan)
Dorset BTW is in the US.

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Log in to Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family and people you know.
www.facebook.com www.facebook.com
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My understanding is that this Fresians are prone to this condition.
 
My first thought on reading was to replace all long stem forage, and it seems like it may be supported by others at anecdotally, might be worth speaking to your vet about the pros amd cons of trialling it.
Fingers crossed for you.
 
Thank you all, appreciate you taking the time to reply.

Really I interesting about the sucralfate and will mention to my vet.

Will check out the other links as well.
 
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